


carry me slowly (my sunlight)

by mimosaeyes



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Language Barrier, Scar Survey, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21914704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimosaeyes/pseuds/mimosaeyes
Summary: Grief is not a fight, she tells her.You cannot strategise and calculate. You cannot wall it out or defeat it. You can only ride it out, with friends.Amaya holds Janai down in Lux Aurea. And then she holds her up. Post 3x09.
Relationships: Amaya & Gren (The Dragon Prince), Amaya/Janai (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 209





	carry me slowly (my sunlight)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hozier’s Sunlight.
> 
> When your fic, at heart, is ‘two characters talk about their feelings,’ you should probably first make sure they can understand each other. Failing which, you end up with this.

Amaya’s first instinct, after the battle, after they meet the Dragon Queen, is to help the wounded and honour the dead.

Her hand is still throbbing, her muscles are aching all over, and her armour weighs heavily on her. But Amaya makes herself walk the battlefield, directing resources and issuing commands. Clapping soldiers on their backs with a respectful nod.

Laying a shroud over the bodies of the fallen. 

And that includes the soldiers who followed Viren and were corrupted by the spell he performed on them. Despite everything, they deserve a proper send-off. Amaya sees to it that they get one.

All the while, Gren follows at her side, a familiar and comforting presence. She has missed that, while they have been separated. 

When the smell of burnt flesh fills her nose and mouth too much — when the tang of spilled blood creeps at the back of her throat — she turns to him, for the smile he always has ready to buoy her up with.

There it is. Small, and tinged with weariness, but unwavering. Amaya can always count on her right-hand man for his optimism, his quiet strength.

Gren’s kind eyes flick over her. _Rest?_ he suggests, his concern for her mixed with a resignation to the fact that she’ll certainly decline. He knows her well.

But she looks beyond him, her gaze drawn to a figure in the distance. It’s the Sunfire elf, pulling on the reins of her flying mount.

She intends to leave.

In a flash, Amaya knows why.

_Stop! Wait!_ she signs rapidly, and takes off at a run towards Janai. She sees her startle slightly at Gren’s shout as he relays her words.

When they reach her side, Janai’s face is more closed off than it’s been around Amaya in some time. “I am sorry,” she says, and Amaya reads her formal tone in the stiffness of her bearing. “I do not mean to be rude, and leave without saying goodbye. But I must do this alone.”

Amaya is torn between watching her lips, and following Gren’s interpreting. Once she has the gist of what Janai is saying, though, she simultaneously wants to hug her, and knock some sense into her.

_You think it will be easier if you harden yourself, isolate yourself_ , Amaya calls her out. Then she softens: _But it won’t. Trust me on this._

The reins slacken a little in Janai’s grip.

“I must lead the people,” she protests, but weakly, with fading resolve. “I am not the queen my sister is — was. But I can be their source of stability in this time. That matters more than my loss.”

Amaya closes the distance between them. _Grief is not a fight_ , she tells her. _You cannot strategise and calculate. You cannot wall it out or defeat it._

She watches as some of the tension bleeds out of Janai. Then she signs, _You can only ride it out. With friends._

As Gren finishes speaking, Janai tilts her head at him, and some unspoken understanding passes between them. Amaya can’t parse it, only notice it and guess what it means. 

She hopes Janai has understood her implied request, or offer. _Let me come with you._

When Janai turns to her again, it’s to lift both her arms slightly while smiling a sad smile, which Amaya considers the universal sign for _Alright, yes._

For the third time in as many minutes, Amaya blinks against the cool night breeze. It makes her sleepy eyes sting worse. 

She shakes herself. She mustn’t doze, not now. Not thousands of feet up in the air, clinging with only her tired legs to Janai’s flying mount.

Not when they are en route to Lux Aurea to mourn a fallen queen. A sister.

Wars are waged for the ego of men, Amaya thinks bitterly, and too often they end with the sacrifice of women.

Janai hasn’t spoken since they set off from the Storm Spire, pleading leave from Zubeia to return for peace talks after a period of bereavement. But then, she doesn’t need to say anything. Amaya reads it all in the set of her shoulders, the way her fingers are clenched around the reins so that her knuckles jut out.

She doesn’t reach forward to touch her, even though she desperately wants to. Even though she’s somehow sure that her touch would be welcome to Janai — soothing, even. Mere weeks ago, the thought of that would have been beyond fathoming to Amaya. Now it’s a difficult urge to resist.

But she knows it’s not comfort Janai needs. At least, not yet. Because Amaya knows this grief, has lived for years with it lodged in her hollow chest. So she recognises Janai’s silence for the vigil that it is.

She wants to keep it with her. But her eyes keep sliding shut, lulled by the warmth radiating off of Janai and the rhythmic beat of her mount’s wings. She and her soldiers rode hard to reach the battlefield in time. Tough as Amaya is, she has to admit that she’s coming up against the bounds of what her body can take.

Amaya dozes, tilting dangerously to one side — then snaps awake and grabs for a handhold. Even as she does, she feels Janai twist in her seat and snag her around the waist, her grip unmistakable in its strength and solidity.

Once she’s regained her balance, Amaya looks up at Janai and signs _Thank you_ , slowly so that she can follow the motion. She holds the fingers of her dominant hand near her lips, then moves her hand in a downward arc angled at Janai, ending with her palm facing up. 

She gives her a small smile, too, trying to make it convey gratitude and apology at once. She doesn’t want to disrupt her mourning. After all, she’s here to support Janai, not get in the way.

But Janai doesn’t respond to the gesture. For a moment, Amaya thinks she hasn’t understood it. Then she follows her gaze, which is fixated on her palm. Her burnt hand, the one she used to hold down Janai after Queen Khessa was killed.

Amaya snatches her hand away. Janai is quicker than she is, really. But she visibly lets Amaya withdraw, her expression troubled and guilty. 

She turns back around and with a quick flick of the reins, urges her mount to land in some caves they were flying over.

As they descend, Amaya taps Janai on her arm. When she glances back over her shoulder, Amaya points at their intended destination and shakes her head earnestly. _We should keep going_ , she adds. Earlier, Janai seemed so determined to reach Lux Aurea as soon as possible. They can’t stop on her account.

Janai only furrows her brow further. It makes her face look shockingly close to crumpling.

Once they land, she slides off first, and by the time Amaya follows suit, Janai is standing several long strides away from her. She enunciates clearly, allowing Amaya to read her lips: “My mount is a creature of the sun, and needs to rest. We will stop for the night.”

Amaya raises a single, disbelieving eyebrow.

Janai purses her lips at her. “This is not up for debate,” she says sternly. But her expression is tender.

She turns away from Amaya, crossing her arms over her chest in a way that has to be defensive — it’s not like she gets cold. It’s a somewhat annoying gesture, though. It effectively guarantees she gets the last word, since Amaya will have to make her look at her if she wants to say anything more.

Huh.

There’s a thought.

With far less discipline than usual, Amaya reaches across and lazily removes her pauldron. She’s not about to drop it, even though this bare rock is unlikely to dent the fine work of Katolis blacksmiths, but she does let it tip from her fingers to the ground with what she guesses must be a loud clang.

She’s gratified when Janai startles and turns back to her. But rather than let it show on her face, Amaya just continues to placidly take off another piece of her armour.

She strips the metal plating off most of her torso before glancing up at Janai — whose mouth has fallen open ever so slightly.

“What are you doing?” she asks, lips stumbling a little over the words.

_Making you pay attention_ , Amaya wants to reply. _Making sure you understand._

But again, the language barrier prevents her. Which is the real reason she’s doing this.

Deftly, Amaya pushes up the sleeve on her left arm to reveal a long, pale scar there. She waits a beat for Janai to take it in, and then she tugs at her inner tunic, tilting her neck to expose the uneven bumps under the skin where she once fractured her collarbone and despite the field doctor’s efforts, it never set right while healing.

Janai has taken a few involuntary steps closer to her. Amaya notes, with something like pleasure, that she doesn’t look horrified. As generals, as warriors, they have a sort of camaraderie in the things they’ve been through. They’ve both seen their fair share of pain.

As she watches, Janai lifts a hand and presses her thumb into a spot on her side. Broken ribs, Amaya would wager. She gives a sympathetic wince. She’s been there. There’s plenty more old injuries she could point to, which are hidden by her clothing most of the time.

Right now, though, she closes the rest of the distance to Janai, and lifts her burnt hand again. Janai flinches as she does, and takes a step back — but stops when Amaya tilts her chin and levels a steady gaze at her.

She imagines telling Janai everything she has been feeling since she pulled her to safety on the Breach. Since they fought Viren’s army together. Since they held hands before the Dragon Queen and Amaya didn’t even mind the pain from her burn, it felt so right to stand by Janai. 

She pictures herself pointing to her scars and saying, _I do not break so easily, you see?_ Or: _My body is a monument to a decade-long war, full of hate and death. I welcome a mark that means I helped you choose life._

Eventually she only raises her hands, index fingers extended, and interlocks them twice. Right over left, then left over right. The sign for _friends_.

Amaya sees the moment Janai’s eyes widen as she recognises the sign from when Callum used it before, to refer to Rayla. Encouraged, she repeats the motion again, and points at the burn mark on her palm.

_I have been hurt by many an enemy_ , she thinks. _I would willingly ache for a friend._

Janai watches her for a long moment, and then hesitatingly signs, _Thank you_. It’s a rather clumsy imitation of Amaya earlier, but it works. 

At the end of the motion, she slips her palm beneath Amaya’s hand, and lifts it to her lips to kiss the sore skin ever so gently. There is something hallowed and knightly about the way she does it; something both ceremonial and intimate. It snatches Amaya’s breath away.

Still holding her hand, Janai looks up at Amaya. “Rest. Please. You will need your strength.” She pauses, and places one hand over her own chest for emphasis even as she looks askance, suddenly vulnerable. “ _I_ … will need your strength.”

_You have it_ , Amaya thinks, and pulls her close. She tucks her face in the crook of her neck.

Janai runs hot, and her skin is warm to the touch. Not in a sweaty or feverish way, as with humans, but with a robustness to it, a thrumming power. She is a lethal warrior and a fearless leader. Her body is a coiled wire. And it is pressed against Amaya, soft and yielding as a sunbeam after rain.

Finally Janai tears away from her, leaving Amaya bereft of her warmth and intensity. She spares her one last look, then strides back toward her mount and sits down by its side. She closes her eyes, looking almost meditative, and doesn’t stir again all night.

Amaya sits opposite her at some distance, cradling her injured hand on her lap. She spends the hours dozing occasionally, and mentally replaying their conversation. Reflecting on everything they each admitted, and everything she has left unsaid.

Finally, dawn begins to saturate the sky. She stands, and watches as sunlight makes the rich gold of Janai’s markings shimmer.

Janai opens her eyes. Amaya holds out a hand to help her up.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I haven’t done justice to how cute and Good they are ;~;


End file.
